California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
Because El Nino brings warmer temperatures and warmer waters, animals that thrive in warmer conditions are beginning to move up north. One animal in particular – the yellow-bellied sea snake – has moved from Baja, up to Southern and Central California.
While the yellow-bellied sea snake is considered to be venomous, they are of little threat to humans. Their small jaws make it difficult for them to open wide enough to bite a human. They are more focused on eating small fish, many of which have traveled north because of El Nino’s warmer water temperatures.
“They spend their entire lives in the water,” Greg Pauly, herpetology curator at the National History Museum of Los Angeles County, told the Daily Bulletin. “So they are extremely excellent swimmers, but they can’t swim against the current all the time, so eventually when the warmer currents move farther north, the snakes get pushed along.”
The only other time these snakes have been spotted in California – a total of three times – were during strong El Nino years, like 1983.
